At Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:02:52 +0000, David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>
wrote:
Subject: Pkgsrc on systems with existing package systems
>
> Just an aside after a discussion with a friend who uses pkgsrc on linux:
>
> With the tendency for Linux and other systems to build tools such as
> perl & python into their base systems there is real scope for pkgsrc
> to be very helpful in some cases by allowing people to install an
> entirely separate package tree which they can manage and update
> separately to the base OS tools. A good example is getting perl 5.10
> on a 'stable' linux release.
>
> Is this something we should be talking about more?
Perhaps on a somewhat related note...
My desktop has "suddenly" ("finally"? :-)) become an iMac and I have for
the moment found that Fink (http://www.finkproject.org/) has offered the
easiest and quickest way for me to get a few necessary additional tools
installed under OS X. (I thought of using pkgsrc, but I had all the
fink packages I wanted installed before I even started to figure out
what I needed to do to use pkgsrc.)
Fink uses the Debian dpkg(8) package manager under the hood, and it
creates "virtual" packages to represent underlying OS X components and
packages (including I think at the OS X pkgutil(1) level).
Perhaps pkgsrc could do something similar to integrated with a
platform's existing package system?
This might help bootstrap easier on some platforms, but of course it
might also cause conflicts with the way one might wish to install a
different version of some package vs. the one already provided.
When I get some spare time I really do need to look at using pkgsrc on
OS X too! :-)
--
Greg A. Woods
Planix, Inc.
<woods%planix.com@localhost> +1 416 218 0099 http://www.planix.com/